Funny Folk Songs About Trains
Monkey and the Engineer, Big Rock Candy Mountain, MTA and More
Not every song about trains has to be a great tragedy. The train has always been a great setting for comedy as well, particularly the absurdist kind. Some examples of this specific humor are:
- The Monkey and the Engineer
- Charlie on the MTA
- Big Rock Candy Mountain
- Rock Island Line
These four songs have become beloved classics, yet too often their origins are forgotten amidst the laughter.
The Monkey and the Engineer by Jesse Fuller
“The Monkey and the Engineer” is a song written and first performed by one-man band Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller, but was made famous by the Grateful Dead, who performed it often in concert. “The Monkey and the Engineer” tells the tale of a very astute monkey who hijacks his owner’s train while the man is getting something to eat.
Jesse Fuller is unique in the archives of folk and blues artists. He was a one-man band, but instead of being satisfied with the usual instrument combinations (guitar, cymbals, harmonica and kazoo), Fuller invented a new instrument, which he called the fotdella. The fotdella is a long, upright, bass shaped box with six bass strings attached lengthwise. Each string could be struck with a padded hammer on a foot lever (Fotdella: mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=52301).
Fuller can be seen using the fotdella in this performance of his most famous song, “San Francisco Bay Blues.”
Charlie on the MTA by Bess Lomax Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner
Using the melody from the classic folk song “The Wreck of the Old 97,” (as well as the chorus from “The Ship That Never Returned”) folk singers Bess Lomax Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner wrote a campaign song for Boston Progressive Party mayoral candidate Walter O’Brien.
Bess Lomax Hawes is the daughter of groundbreaking musicologist John Lomax and sister to Alan Lomax, and a former member of the Almanac Singers (Bess Lomax Hawes Bio, http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:hbfuxqygldde~T1).
Calling their song “Charlie on the MTA,” it shares the “tragic and fateful” story of Charlie, a man who innocently gets on the Boston subway (MTA), but cannot pay the exit fee to get off. “Poor old Charlie” is forced to spend the rest of his days on the MTA, his only nourishment coming from a daily sandwich that his wife brings to him as the train goes by.
In 1959, the former campaign song became a hit for the Kingston Trio, who simply called the song “MTA.” They changed O’Brien’s name from Walter to George in order to distance themselves from the Progressive Party, but Charlie stayed the same, trapped forever on the MTA (Charlie on the MTA mit.edu/~jdreed/t/charlie.html).
Big Rock Candy Mountain
It is not uncommon that a beloved children’s song begins as a folk song. Such is the case with “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” is about a hobo’s paradise. A hobo is a homeless person who drifts from one place to another by sneaking onto a train, or “hopping boxcars” (Hobo: answers.com/topic/hobo).
Hobos became very common during the Great Depression, where poverty and drought caused thousands to lose their homes. Songs about hobos have become a staple in American Folk Music, forever linked with the railroads and with the Depression.
When first written [most likely by Harry McClintock, although this is sometimes disputed (dreamtimepodcast.com/2009/03/episode-61-oh-that-big-rock-candy.html)], it made references to “cigarette trees” and “streams of ‘alkeyhol,’” along with lakes of whiskey and gin. In fact, one early derivative, called "The Appleknocker's Lament," has a child running off with a hobo to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, only to end up as said hobo's sex slave (sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiBIGROCK3;ttBIGROCK.html).
Over years, these became things more appealing to children, such as lemonade and peppermints. Older versions of “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” contain the original lyrics, and may be surprising to those that grew up with the sanitized versions.
Rock Island Line
Lead Belly is commonly given credit as the author for the famous folk-blues song “Rock Island Line.” While Lead Belly was the first to record “Rock Island Line,” its origins are as a prison work song (Rock Island: news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200210/15_bickalj_rock island/).
“Rock Island Line,” of course, is the comic story of an engineer who tricks a toll operator into letting his train on the main line without paying the toll. The engineer tells the toll operator when asks what he is carrying “I got sheep, I got cows, I got horses, I got pigs, I got all livestock! I got all livestock! I got all livestock!” After he gets through, the engineer yells, “I fooled you! I fooled you! I got pig iron! I got pig iron! I got all pig iron!”
The Rock Island Line was a real railroad, at one point one of the largest in America. Also known as “The Rock,” The Rock Island Line was the first railroad to connect Chicago with the Mississippi River in 1852 (Rock Island Line: news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200210/15_bickalj_rockisland/railroad.shtml.) Eventually the Rock Island Line would spread across the center of America, from Denver to Memphis, and from Minneapolis to Eunice, Louisiana.
As said above, not every train song has to be a tragic ballad or mournful blues. Whether it is a monkey hijacking a train, a hobo stealing a trip, a shifty engineer, or a man stuck on a subway, the magnificence of the railroad is the perfect vehicle for comedy.
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